As competition in the mobile device business has increased, manufacturers of mobile devices may have found themselves struggling to differentiate their respective products. Although mobile device styling may have been the preferred way of attracting consumers, manufactures are increasingly turning to adding additional features. For example, at one time a cellular telephone was only used for voice communication. But today, cellular telephones may be more akin to computers. Many run familiar applications such as calendar and email applications. Additionally, some cellular telephones include hardware and software to support GPS navigation and hands-free capability. The last two features may require the cellular telephone to support communication protocols other than the standard cellular telephone protocols.
Supporting more and more communication protocols may increase the cost and size of mobile devices. For example, the hands-free capability described above may conform to a Bluetooth standard and therefore may require additional software and hardware, to support Bluetooth functionality. For example additional PLLs, filters and power amplifiers may be needed. The GPS capabilities described above may also require dedicated hardware and software.
In addition, to cost and size, the power consumption of these mobile devices may increase as well because the extra components may consume power even when not used. For example, various PLLs corresponding to various communication protocols may be operating even though no transmission may be occurring using those communication protocols.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.